Protein kinases paralleling late-phase LTP formation in dorsal hippocampus in the rat

•A series of protein kinases for LTP is provided.•The protein kinases in LTP formation resemble behaviourally induced protein kinases.•Protein kinases are paralleling spatial memory formation forming possible pharmacological targets.

Hippocampal long term potentiation (LTP), representing a cellular model for learning and memory formation, can be dissociated into at least two phases: a protein-synthesis-independent early phase, lasting about 4 h and a protein-synthesis-dependent late phase LTP lasting 6 h or longer, or even days. A large series of protein kinases have been shown to be involved and herein, a distinct set of protein kinases proposed to be involved in memory retrieval in previous work was tested in dorsal hippocampus of the rat following induction of late-phase LTP. A bipolar stimulation electrode was chronically implanted into the perforant path, while two monopolar recording electrodes were implanted into the dentate gyrus of the dorsal hippocampus. The recording electrode was measuring extracellular excitatory postsynaptic potentials, while the other one measured population spikes. Protein kinases were determined by immunoblotting and immunoflourescence on hippocampal areas showed the distribution pattern of protein kinases PKN1 and NEK7.Induction of LTP was proven, elevated levels for protein kinases PKN1, RPS6KB1, STK4, CDC42BPB, PRKG, TLK, BMX and decreased levels for NEK7, MAK14 and PLK1 were observed. A remarkable overlap of protein kinases observed in spatial memory processes with those proposed in LTP formation was demonstrated. The findings may be relevant for design of future studies on protein kinases and for the interpretation of previous work.